1:28 (-10 or so for the door to close) to beat two Stalfos. Granted the player isn't the best in the world and misses some hits he shouldn't have. He spends upwards of 70% of the fight with his shield up, waiting.

Notice also how the devs put a pot with a fairy in the room, just to make sure you could heal to full if you needed it, instantly erasing any tension of the fight.

Also note how this video is not intended to be a critique or a parody. The user even wrote "stalfos are cool" in the description.

And yes, I'm going to take pot shots at OoT's absolutely shitty combat every time it's up for elimination.

But to be fair, lets also look at the best fight in the game:

Despite what Navi says because she is a useless piece of shit, Iron Knuckles do not have a "guard." The fight takes a long time, but only because the player fights that slow. (Mostly not using jumping hits for 2x damage after an axe whiff) The player totally controls the pace of the fight. Notice also how the in-fight healing isn't just a full restore in a pot, but hidden in the pillars, which can only be accessed by controlling the enemy to break the pillars for you.

The Iron Knuckle fight is how Dark Souls handles (aside from a few shield dudes here and there, which you can kick) fighting. No sitting and waiting with your shield up for minutes and minutes while you watch Stalfos or werewolves circle you. The player controls how the fight goes. The penalty for button mashing is you get fucking hit across the mouth with a giant axe.

Let me start off by saying that the first time I played through OoT, getting to that odd room with a tree and water and nothing else and looking around and seeing nothing and then heading to the locked door to see if there's some mechanism to open it, finding none, then turning around to continue the search for "eye hidden somewhere in room that you shoot with your slingshot/bow to open door" and suddenly seeing a motionless shadowy figure standing under that tree...

Well, that shit was and is the sickest fucking shit. A++ for atmosphere and presentation. It's not often a game can elevate itself to "cinema" quality and that moment will live in my mind forever as one of the greats in all of Video Gaming.

The fight itself is pretty shit, though, and a wasted opportunity. Like you said, it's very easy to "break" (by using the biggoron sword, megaton hammer, or fire spell) and remove all mechanical fun/interest, but even if you just go man mode and Master Sword/Shield only it, the fight just isn't that fun. It is, I suppose, more of a puzzle than a real fight, which is fine. If you think of it in those terms I guess it gets a passing grade from me. I do like how Shadow Link will hop on your sword and mock you if you try to stab him (later on in the fight, he not only hops up but also smacks you in the face) but other than that the fight is mostly just mashing your sword as he mirrors your attacks and you both endlessly bounce off each other.

I guess you could say that the devs INTENTIONALLY want you to break the fight. Since Shadow Link mirrors your shit during phase one and you can hardly hit him at all, it encourages the player to try something else other than just swording. The problem is, the interesting phase of the fight (phase 2, after he's about half dead) where he stops mirroring you and actually just fights is ALSO nullified by using the hammer or the fire spell.

If it were up to me, I'd have phase 1 be the same as it now, a puzzle fight where you can either trade blows for an hour to chip hit him down to phase 2, or use EZ mode items to consistently hit him, but then I'd make him suddenly immune to your EZ mode items in phase 2 and force you to fight sword to sword once he quits just exactly countering you and actually fights. But because you can just mash hammer for 45 seconds and win, the fight itself is pretty uninteresting.

Zelda 2's Shadow Link fight is equally stupid. Again, it scores major points for presentation, but then the fight itself is either a random mashfight and hope you win, or go to corner, duck, and mash sword to win automatically. Neither option is interesting or fun. The fact that OoT seems to be the EXACT SAME DESIGN (win automatically with EZ mode items or mash and hope) is I guess sort of consistent design for that particular enemy?

I don't know of any other Shadow Link encounters in Zelda. I haven't played a lot of them, though, and there's probably a decent Shadow Link fight in there somewhere. But the two I've played have been pretty bad.

Hybrid Heaven is one of those one-off weirdos we get sometimes, like the first draft of an incredible idea, that passed with such nigh-universal indifference that no one ever bothered to refine it into a true gem. Yeah, it's shackled to inane character design, a general aesthetic way too bland for its ridiculous B movie plot, and just a hefty dose of old-fashioned jank. But there's a fascinating, unique mechanism under the surface, with a clever sense of strategy, pace and impact to its combat, and man it would clean up so nice. So nice.

The galling thing about the Zelda 2 Shadow Link battle is that the game has been training you from day 1 to be proficient at the whole "duel against a durable opponent of your size who can attack and block high and low" and equipping you with more and more skills to beat incrementally more dangerous opponents, from the Stalfos who only attack and block high, to the various types of Ironknuckles and Lizalfos, without then with projectiles, to those asshole jumping bird knights in the last temple... and then you get to what should be the culmination of all that experience, and you have to throw your entire toolbox away because none of it works. It should have been an amazing, rewarding fight, but all of Shadow Link's parameters are tuned like half a notch too far to be beatable in a satisfying way.

I mean, the idea of having an enemy who has the same tools as you is cool, but when one of these tools is an instant stab to the kneecaps with no telegraph, start-up or recovery, there is only so much counterplay either side can bring to the table.

It's the one thing about Zelda 2 I dislike. Yes, I like Death Mountain, and bubbles knocking you into pits, and slimes knocking you into pits, and invisible flying eyeballs knocking you into pits, because I am a masochist. literally insane.

See you next time around, OoT. Your days are numbered, you overhyped piece of shit. an actually really good, solid game that fanboys literally worship as the be all end all because they were 13 when it came out and have no ability to be objective, rational, or even vaguely coherent about games, game design, or anything at all

A game so faithful to Gauntlet's mechanics lives and dies on level design; GL's levels aren't exactly flawless but their variety and intricacy goes a hell of a long way. I didn't just beat it with every character; I beat it with every color of every character, just because I was looking for more excuses to play it from the start.